Mute
by shezwriter
Summary: Eighteen-year-old Rose Weasley has not uttered a single word since her parents and brother were brutally drowned to death. Problem is that she was the only witness. Living with the Potters, she finds her uncle and Head Auror Harry coping just as poorly as her.
1. Quiet

**Rated for language, violence, depictions of mental illness, sexual content, and other adult themes**. **Mind the pairings.**

**X**

The alarm shakes the bedside table. Without opening her eyes, Rose feels for the clock's ice cold stopper. She'd been in a deep, soft, warm sleep and wants it back, one more tantalizing minute. But the dream eludes wakeful pursuit. There'd been water, dark water. Tons of it pressing at her, only she didn't drown. She breathed inside it better, in fact, than she does here, in reality, in grey rooms and behind the unsubtly pitying faces of her extended family.

A trumpet blares from outside the door of her room and a girl squeals. Rose sighs into her pillow. It's her cousin Lily, who lacks all emotional control when it comes to falling victim to her brother James' haphazard pranks, who has chosen to wake the young girl with instrumental torture, probably pressed up right to her ear. Seconds pass, and she can hear the angry thumping of Lily's feet after she punches James and races him down the narrow corridor to the bathroom. The bathroom door slams, James groans in defeat, and Ginny yells, presumably from downstairs, at them to keep it down. The Potters are all like this though, loud and shouty and oblivious to the stress they create. An expert at self-repression, Rose has never fit in with them.

Grey cotton stretches along her spine as she sits up. She arches her shoulders against the cold and breathes. Why does the air smell so unpleasant? It smells like cigarette smoke, which must mean Albus is finally home from the Austrian leg of his auror training. She remembers him mentioning he was coming soon in the many long, emotional letters he sent her that she mostly skimmed over. She has lost interest in keeping up with his overly successful life. Her cousin is a prodigious—cutthroat—wizard, a committed smoker, terrible with people, and, she has decided only recently, a confusing friend.

She lowers her feet to the chilled floor, cautious, and watches the lamp light blink on and off. Flickering lights mean that someone has just apparated in. Albus prefers flying wherever he can, so this someone must be Harry. She listens for the sounds of her uncle's heavy, fatigued footsteps up the stairs, burdened with the weight of his work, and she can sense his pause outside her door, and for a second she almost hears his knock.

Uncle Harry doesn't knock though. He works nights while she works days, so while they work in the same office, they hardly ever see each other. But for the past eight months he has done this, hovered outside her bedroom door in the mornings when he gets home, not knocking. Whatever he wants to say to her has been delayed another day.

She decides not to linger on this. Instead she stands up to bathe and wearily sets her timer. It commences its usual _tick-tick-tick_. Her psychiatrist has mandated that she set it whenever she goes into water, so that she remembers to return. She's had a few mishaps in the past, but luckily—or maybe unluckily—Harry and Ginny have always been around to pull her out. She's got money thanks to her own parents, plenty of it secured in vaults at Gringotts, enough to buy her own place, but she must live with the Potters until she is decreed 'mentally stable'.

For some reason, Rose takes baths exclusively. She peels off her flannel as the water pours. The women's fashion magazines scattered across the waiting room of her psychiatrist's office have informed her of the precise inches of her body she should fixate on. But hips and breasts can't compare to the pink scars on her chest. She leans in until her naked shoulder bumps the glass. The scar is three inches long and drawn from her jugular to beneath her collar bone. In the distance, she hears a bus _screeeeech_ to halt; With the exception of school terms spent at Hogwarts, she has lived her whole life in Godric's Hollow, eighteen years, and can track the distance from the bus stop to the cemetary where her parents and brother all now lay buried. Her scars are a road map too, aren't they? To places she'd been best not to remember.

Dipping her ears under bathwater amplifies the sounds of squabbling outside her door; Lily yelling at James while Ginny yells at them both. The yelling is expected, like clockwork, and Rose ignores it. She slides a sliver of soap between her hands enjoying the feeling of being wetter than water, so slippery she can cut through liquid like a fish. Impressions of her dream press against her, heavy as a man's body. It is abruptly, shockingly erotic; she slides her soapy fingers between her thighs. She's gone on dates, had mediocre sex a handful of times with ex-boyfriend Scorpius Malfoy. But it's been months. Boys meet a girl who's mute, they take advantage of her. Never once on a date has a boy ever tried to communicate, not really. They just grab, and take, as if she, voiceless as an animal, _is_ an animal. This is better. Solitude, and the press of warm water, is better.

But the timer, the infernal timer rings, goes _ring-a-ding-ling!. _Rose splutters, embarrassed even though she's alone, and stands, her limbs shiny and draining. She wraps in a bathrobe and pads shivering back into the room, where she accepts the bad news: 9:07 a.m. Where did she lose so much time? She straps on the watch Hugo had given her, ages ago, for her fifteenth birthday. It is engraved with the letters _MY FAVORITE DORK_. A heartachingly precious gift from the then-preteen boy, one she hadn't appreciated at the time, and one that he'd tried to blunt the sentiment of with his usual mocking '_you may be good at numbers_ _but you're terrible at being on time, Rosie'_. She thinks it's perfect now. It's the only thing she likes, really. She adores the faded leather band that is frayed at the ends. The way the cold metal kisses the skin of her wrist.

The rest of her attire doesn't matter. She shuffles into a utilitarian bra, buttons a blouse that is mostly shapeless with slight feminine touches at the sleeves, and yanks a bulky pair of trousers over her hips. Her clothing choices make her look larger than she is, but they conceal her, which is the point. Her hair is dried quickly and piled in an unglamorous bun on top of her head. She's a Hogwarts drop-out, never sat her NEWTs, chose not to finish her Seventh Year, let all her professors down because she couldn't quite handle the stress, and her mum is probably rolling over in her grave. It doesn't matter though. What she is good at is numbers. And luckily her job as a data analyst in the Auror department, one that Uncle Harry secured her mostly out of pity, doesn't require a dress code and affords minimal interaction with people. She should probably set her ambitions higher but she finds she rather prefers the comfort of coming to a small cubicle and settling into an easy routine. She'd felt ragingly alive in her dream but here, in real life, she's as inert as a dead fish. There's a mirror in her bedroom too, but she chooses not to look at it as she strides out, just in case her premonitions are correct and she really is invisible.

X

**If this piques your interest, let me know in a review! **

**08 May 19 edit: I had ch 2 up for a bit but took it down because I didn't quite like the way it flowed. I'll be back soon. Pls disregard if you read that! **


	2. Vengeful

Watch the world in rewind. It's faster, scoured of soul, a blade grated over fish scales until all glimmer—glamor—is gone. Press pause. Enjoy the fleshy slap of magnetic tape stretched thin. Press play. Infinite Ministry hallways, identical, black-robed clones gliding through like a school of tiny tuna. Isolate a person of interest. Toggle, toggle. Dissect the tape into seconds, half-seconds, quarter-seconds. Wizards are no longer wizards. Aurors are no longer absolute. They are abstract shapes you can study like post-modern sculptures. The shadow in that Unspeakable's pocket could be the secret of all life. The muddy grin of his freeze-framed face might be the devil's skull. Sixteen cameras. Infinite clues. Rewind, stop, toggle. This hallway, that. There's no way out. All routes lead back here, to his office. No closer to the truth. No further. Harry Potter feels trapped.

His eyes, lined with red, feel like rotted boils about to rupture. All that time he spent solving cases in Switzerland, in France, in Germany, chasing down straggler Death Eaters overseas, when he should've been home. When he should've been protecting his family. His best mates, and his nephew, bright-eyed and fifteen-years-old and precious beyond all else. It's been eight months and fifteen days. A couple of drops of Felix Felicis and Harry'd see everything these tapes are hiding. Night after night after night he's been searching for the killer, looking for anomalies hidden in plain sight.

It wasn't some random killer. No, this was a deliberate, planned event. It's Harry's job to know the unsavory from the truly horrific. To snuff out motivations. A list of former Death Eaters and associates is permanently tacked to his desk, DOLORES UMBRIDGE at the very top and circled in vindictive red ink. Harry's single-handedly responsible for half of Azkaban's detainees, among those are some very influential political figures with a vendetta. He intends to imprison one more before the month is out—No, that's a lie. This particular killer deserves death, nothing less.

And there is it. Just like that. November 12th, 2024. The night of their murders. Camera 7. Loading dock. Hooded figures dragging four sacks as large as petrified bodies. One of the hoods slips and he spots a flash of platinum blond hair. Blond hair? Blond hair. The first few seconds of the final tape before the infamous Ministry blackout. The camera, does it bump upward? A couple of critical centimeters? Harry toggles. Before, after, before, after.

He gets up out of his chair. The hallways, he swears, have gotten brighter. He shades his eyes with a hand, who cares if his superiors think he's mental and ought to retire. He travels arrogantly past the offices of Bones and Hopkirk and Kingsley himself, the route, as he sees it, their kidnappers took during the blackout. He pushes through gates.

There is no sun outside. It is night. Harry's lost track of time yet again. Gin will be upset, but his wife is often pissed at him. The ramp to the exterior is clean, bloodless. He whirls around. Looks up at Camera 7. Then looks straight at it.

Four young, male aurors stand there, faces rubbery with shock. They have uniforms, lousy postures, different shades of skin. What they share is laziness. The hours he's spent slaving in his office this week are in the triple digits, and these—millennials—can't endure five minutes without a break, and down here, where it's against regulations? But Harry needs information. He tries on a hard, waxy smile.

"You lot taking a smoke break, huh?"

They stare. No response comes.

Does he hire mutes exclusively? No, he decides. Only his niece. These idiots are just terrified.

"Don't worry, you're not in trouble." He extends the smile, feels his wax lips start to crack. "Hell, I ought to join you. I'm not allowed to smoke inside either, but damn it if I don't do it anyway." The new-age aurors steal incredulous glances at each other, elongating ashes. "Tell me something, though. How do you lift the camera so you don't get caught?"

Names are tacked on their uniforms, just like tags on a dog. _Scor-pi-us_, one reads. A posh name—too posh, and too pretty, for an auror. He looks like a posh, pretty boy as well. Expensive shoes. Blond hair gelled to skull. Pale-as-ghoul skin. The kind of thin lips that like to mouth off. Not in front of the Head Auror, though. This kid knows his place. Good for him, though he smells like a Malfoy. The way his eyes drop tells Harry he's new, has just finished his training, and that this is his first week in the office. He's in Al's graduating class of trainees.

Highly curious career choice for Malfoy's kid.

Boy Malfoy guiltily nods at the object behind them, which they used to lift the camera. It's no sophisticated gadget like the one that caused the blackout. It's a broom. A motherfucking broom.

Harry's mind is the VTR. It forwards, stops, plays, rewinds, toggles. He's closing in on the critical frame.

"Say." He means to sound friendly, and doesn't, and doesn't give a shit. "You lot ever see anyone else back here?"

X

His red phone rings. It won't stop ringing. Harry won't answer it. Not until he's got the situation by the tail. For five minutes it will ring. Thirty minutes will pass, if he's lucky, an hour. Then it will ring again. He's got to focus. He keeps glancing at his phone like he's never seen the color red before, like it isn't the same red that the water became. The same red that drenched his niece's shuddering body when they pulled her out of the river. Harry shuffles the briefs Neville, his second in command, has handed him. An act to maintain the illusion of interest. He didn't read more than the opening sentence. Can't feel the papers with his dead fingers. Doesn't care, not anymore.

"Do you need to answer that?" Neville asks. "If you'd like me to step out…"

"Don't you go anywhere."

The phone keeps ringing. Aurors fill his office instead, slinking into chairs, squeezing onto the sofas, lining the walls in the back, waiting to hear what he has to say.

Harry avoids their enquiring eyes. Looks around, nods at the monitors. Half are live, half are paused on the frames of the day of their deaths. Harry feels the same, half alive, half dead, desperate to find answers even as his veins run with cold blood.

"Have you gotten any sleep at all this week?" Neville asks.

Harry stares back at the cameras, ignoring the question. "I have a lead, finally. A very promising lead."

"Well, that's…" Neville adjusts in his chair. "How about you go home to your wife now, Harry? I'm sure Ginny misses you."

"I have reason to believe it's a former Death Eater. A set of them, actually."

Neville raises his brows. "You can't go that route without credible proof unless you want to sit through a hearing."

After Riddle, the Ministry passed a Nondiscrimination Act which made it near impossible to target reformed Death Eaters and accomplices. After murders of his best friends and nephew, redemption has become an odd concept to Harry. Riddle is long dead. But lesser monsters persist. And do monsters truly change, or do they just get better at pretending? The Act was passed, without a doubt in Harry's vengeful mind, to protect the corrupt Ministry elite. The people who want to hurt him and his family. In Harry's highly paranoid mind, schoolboy rivalries have grown to last forever.

"The killer caused the blackout. He disguised their bodies as shipment."

"There were a lot of shipments made that day, Harry."

"And I approved every single one of them. That one wasn't in the files."

Neville's lips etch in a hard frown. "Doesn't Albus get back from Austria today?" he asks. "Don't you think you should pay a bit more attention to that?"

Neville is right. Harry shouldn't be working. His son will return today, after three months training overseas, a full-fledged auror, and fatherly protocol is to celebrate this accomplishment. But Albus has always been a lot less needing of attention than his other kids. More competent, and more confident. But not any less of a menace.

Mid-meeting, Albus makes himself known. The office door swings, heads turn, aghast, as the skinny, eighteen-year-old swaggers in with far too much bluster. He has just landed in the country, evidently, in a slurry pit: His puffy, snowcoat-clad frame is caked in mud. Harry can already hear the rumblings of outrage by the janitorial staff at the muck he has dragged. Al's cheeks are blistered from wind. His eyes are hidden behind overlarge snow goggles and his ears are concealed with the large flaps of his aviator hat, a memento of his mountainland adventures.

His son grins wide, baring teeth.

"Morning, fellow aurors," he says, with an ironically polite nod at everyone in the office, before adding, "And Dad."

Harry returns a look of stern disapproval. "It's three in the morning," he says.

"I knew you'd be in the office…You look like hell."

"Go home," Harry wearily commands. "This meeting is for classified personnel. I'll talk to you in the morning."

"No." Albus raises his goggles over his hat, nonchalant. "I'm _classified personnel_ now." He taps the badge gleaming on his chest, then slides into an armchair. Splays out his long legs with a casual insolence. "How do you suppose I got in the building, _Dad?_"

"Lockpicking, I reckon, if your detention record is what I have to go by," Harry says dryly, and Neville suppresses a chuckle.

"How're you, Professor Longbottom?" Al says, smirking. "Bet you're going to _hate_ having to deal with me again."

"It's Auror Longbottom now," Neville says with another wry chuckle. "And on the contrary, I can't wait to have you on the team."

"That makes one of you," Albus replies sardonically. "Say, maybe I'll pretend _you're_ my dad, Uncle Neville, instead of that stroppy fellow there."

Harry returns a withering look. _Get your arse home before I call your mum and make her deal with you_, he wants to threaten. It is on the edge of his tongue. He deals with powerful criminals on a regular basis, but he has no parental authority over his middle child, hasn't since the kid hit puberty. That is Gin's jurisdiction. Instead Harry asks, "Why didn't you write?"

"Was busy. Had to focus on my practicals like a good little boy, didn't I?"

"The practicals are much easier now than they were in my day."

Albus jerks his chin, offended. "Your praise is overwhelming, really," he says, dryly. "I did write to Rose though." He gives a slightly rueful smile. "Evidently she didn't bother reading any of my letters."

This is murky territory that Harry was hoping to avoid. He wants to nip this unpleasant tension in the bud before the arguments at home can begin.

"Rose has been…busy," he says, careful. "Be nice to her. Let it go."

"Sure." Al's tone is clipped, a bit cold. "So busy, laying in bed all day with the door locked."

Harry maintains an expression of neutral silence.

"It's true though, isn't it?" Albus prompts, leaning in, hands on his muddy knees. "It's been eight months, she's still wallowing, and you and mum are just enabling her."

"We'll step out," Neville says, noting the tension between father and son, and stands.

Harry sighs, watching the other aurors quickly follow suit. He removes his glasses, swipes the lenses with his sleeve.

"Let Rose deal how she wants," he says, giving his son a hard, forceful look. "There's no perfect way to grieve. There doesn't _need_ to be."

"You're projecting, Dad. You're talking about yourself. Not her."

Has Harry grown to identify with his orphaned niece a little too much, more than he does with his own kids? Perhaps. He and Rose hardly ever talk. They don't need to. She doesn't talk at all. She has repressed everything, memories, emotions, voice. This is a problem Harry understands perfectly.

"I wanted her to come to Austria with me. We could've had _loads_ of fun."

"It's best if Rosie stays where your mother and I can keep an eye on her."

Albus scowls. "Getting away would do her good," he insists. "I'm the _perfect_ person to do that with. I'm the perfect bodyguard —I can hex anyone. Seriously, _anyone_. And I'm practically her brother."

Harry's eyebrows raise. _Brotherly_ is not how he would describe his son. Confounded teenage hormones are a wicked thing. And Harry's wary of how long their hugs have always been, how intimately close their mouths hover when they whisper, the way Al's hand travels down the groove of Rose's spine when they sit together on the family porch swing-seat. Harry understands he must protect both his children. From each other, if need be.

"Do you have any idea how Rose gets when she's near water?" Harry says, eyes narrowed. "She needs _proper adult_ _supervision_." He lifts his wand, charms the door open. "Now leave this alone and go home. Hug your mum, she's missed you terribly. And _get along with James_, for Merlin's sake."

Albus sighs with aggravation. But stands.

His son's barely sulked out of sight when the red phone starts ringing again. Harry slams his fist on his desk hard enough to make the receiver tremble. It hurts. But it's also satisfying, like squashing longhorn beetles, bullet ants, tarantulas—pests. When he does it again he chooses the left fist. He slams and slams and slams and feels a pop in one of the fingers, one of his black stitches ripping free. Like the sutures in his niece's frail neck. Who is falling apart faster, him or her?

The phone rings again. He picks up on the first ring. He hears the clatter of a dropped clipboard on the other end.

"Mr. P-otter," stammers the low voice. His contact outside the taskforce. His illegal rat. "Who would you like me to—"

"When the likes of Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, and Vincent Crabbe leave work today," Harry replies tersely, coldly, "I want you to follow them. Find me anything I can arrest them for. Any whiff of illegal activity. Report it straight to me and I'll handle it from there. Thanks, Mundungus."

X

**Let**** me know what you think so far! Future chapters will be longer.**


	3. Suspicious

"So tell me about your dream, Rose."

She looks up from her wrist-watch, a brief stare of her tired eyes to the glass-guarded leer of the psychiatrist.

Dr. Clarice dons the most infuriatingly benign smile. She smiles in the cold and distant way professionals do. Her face is devoid of any make-up and her hair is in a tight ponytail, not a strand out of place. Through their session she gives commands rather than requests.

"Please start writing, Rose," she says, drumming her own pen against the hem of her prim, knee-length skirt.

Rose yawns with a pointed note of irritation. Clarice ignores this, ignores the fact that her patient hates being here, and is only made to do so by her aunt and uncle. That this isn't a conversation; it's a hostage situation.

Nevertheless, Rose picks up the pen and paper laid out on the table. Scratches out her response, and holds up the cold, crude lettering. It reads:

_I was screwing a mermaid._

"A mermaid?" Clarice raises an amused brow. "That's a new one. Female?"

Rose nods, deadpan.

"Is this the first time you've had sexual thoughts about another woman?" the doctor probes, trying to get a foothold into her psyche.

The mode of questioning spurs a daggered glare. Rose already hates where this is going. So she furiously scribbles back:

_I wish I was gay, doc. But really, I'm just a nutcase._

"You're not a nutcase," Clarice says, in that light, jaunty voice Rose has grown to despise so much. "But, going back to the dream: Why fantasize about sex?"

Rose grimaces, feeling embarrassed. She hesitates for a second before scribbling down: _I'm 18._

"Dig deeper."

Rose scowls and angrily jots:

_I'm lonely, miserable, and horny. Happy now?_

Dr. Clarice maintains her distant edge. "These feelings are nothing to be ashamed of," she says, politely folding her hands in her lap. "They're normal. Expected, even, given your circumstances. But what does that have to do with having sex with a creature that exists primarily underwater?" A pause. "Was the sex underwater?"

_Yes_.

"Are all your dreams underwear?"

_Yes_.

"What about the nightmares?"

_Those too._

"Back to the sex. Did you enjoy it? Do you even remember?"

Her cheeks splotch with heat. She writes:

_Yes, it was soothing._

"Soothing," Dr. Clara echoes. "Would it have been different with a man? Not soothing. Rougher? More frightening perhaps? Do men frighten you?"

Her shoulders draw in, awkward, hunched. She stares at her sneakers. Her frail, slender fingers raise to map out the bruise on her neck, tracing its red outline.

_Not all of them_ she writes back.

"Which ones don't?"

_James. Al. Most of my family._

_And Harry. I know he'll never hurt me._

"Your uncle," Dr. Clarice says, consideringly. "He's like a father to you, isn't he?"

Rose smiles, a bitter, mutilated thing.

_I think he thinks that._

"But you don't?"

Rose stares away, out the window and down the street, with a clenched jaw. She gives no response.

X

X

X

Hydromania. An irrational love of water, to be near it, be inside it, to consume and be consumed.

An ice-cold glass of water sits on the table, small drops clinging to it like perspiration. Rose stares, her throat itchy. It stands calm, cool. Her surroundings are anything but. The morning hour is noisy, filled with the rattle and thuds of food preparation, the wheeze of the old fan on top of the fridge, and the incessant stream of chatter coming from James.

"...still can't believe how _good_ the crowd was last night," he says. "The clapping was so loud. It was such a fucking riot."

"Language, Jamie," Ginny chides absently, sizzling bacon in a pan.

A fog of light pours through the kitchen window. Rose sifts cold eggs around her plate, listening half-heartedly as James—of Jimmy and the Trumpet Boys—describes his latest gig.

"I reckon the next club we play at actually pays us. We've roused a decent enough following."

"They better," Ginny agrees, refilling his coffee mug. James takes an overly enthusiastic gulp of the scorching liquid and is rewarded with pain.

"Easy! It's hot," Ginny warns.

"Now you tell me," he hisses.

Rose stares as he feverishly gulps down the glass of cold water. She finds herself watching his pale throat intently, enthralled. His skin is fragile, she notes, and oddly sliceable.

Her stomach seizes. What the hell is she thinking? This observation triggers—pain? Is this muscle memory? Her own throat, at the stitched-up scar, throbs. The fork in her hand burns like embers.

She drops it, wincing as it clanks against the porcelain plate.

Her eyes squeeze tightly shut.

She tries counting backwards from ten.

_Nine..._

_Eight..._

_Seven..._

The numbers don't calm. She's easily frustrated by this exercise. She digs through her grey work-purse for her little sudoku book. Given her proclivity for numbers, her psychiatrist has suggested she do one puzzle every day. Routines, Dr. Clarice says, are important for stability. This puzzle is especially challenging too, which is good, because it occupies her. Sedates.

She scribbles down a 7 then a 4, admiring how neatly the values line up, appreciating the orderliness, even though her cousin is speaking again.

"I'm definitely dragging you to my next show." James shoots her a grin. He is a jazz musician, with nocturnal practice times, to the detriment of every sleep schedule in the house except Harry's. He hasn't yet managed to make a living of his music—only reason why he still lives at home. "Say...Maybe you can dance a bit. You took lessons as a kid, didn't you? We need a bird or two to uhh—liven up our drunken demographic."

Ginny turns, looking indignant on her behalf. "Our Rosie will do no such thing," she says, with a matronly air that's not like Ginny at all.

_Our Rosie._ It stings. Rose hates it. It's another reminder that she belongs to the Potters. She, a babyish—coddled—young woman. In the infancy of adulthood, just learning to crawl.

She brings a forkful of egg to her lips, and the skin around her collar itches. She's uncomfortable again. She hates the chore of eating, of nourishing her body. She waits for her hovering aunt to finally look away. The second Ginny does, she sets the utensil down, leaving the morsel of food unscathed. Makes it vanish with a quick flick of her wand. James cocks an eyebrow at her charade. _I see right through you_, he mouths at her, with a sly grin.

Rose ignores him.

The kitchen faucet drips loudly, water, water, and more water, while her aunt maintains a charade of her own—she pretends to wash dishes, humming faux-cheerily to herself. Lily, upstairs, is getting prettied up to go out with her friends. Harry, also upstairs, is sleeping off another grueling night shift that he has chosen to willingly work, and in his absence the kitchen feels empty, devastated somehow. Rose knows Ginny feels it too. They all feel it, but none of them will ever say it. It is plain to see Ginny wants to go upstairs and crawl into bed with her husband, who has been defeated by the night. But she must remain here for her obnoxious son and ungrateful niece.

Rose has gotten good at pretending to be okay. When Ginny leaves the room, Rose will scrape the rest of the eggs off the plate and into the sink's garbage disposal. James won't tell, she already knows. He never has and he never will.

"Catch!" comes a gleeful shout, from across the breakfast table, but it's too late.

A weighted balloon lands in her lap. Ice-cold water explodes, lashes at her face, stains across her baggy jeans and blouse.

For a few painstaking seconds, she can't breathe.

"Sorry," James says, seeing that she's on the verge of tears. He raises his wand, releasing a warm shoot of air to dry her off.

"I figured..." he begins guiltily. "Figured I could scare you into saying something."

She shoots a properly irritated look. James, despairing now, picks up his saxophone from beside the table and plays a minor third interval. A _wonk-wonk-woooonk_ fail sound effect.

Ginny swats the back of James' head as she squeezes between his chair and the wall, to plant a warm, maternal kiss to Rose's sunken cheek. Ginny smells of fresh herbs and lemons.

"How are you feeling, dear?" Ginny piles her plate with more sickening eggs and a few greasy pieces of sausage. "Did you sleep well?"

Rose raises her shoulders in a shrug. She takes a one bite to appease her aunt, although it is a struggle to swallow, before turning her attention back to her little book of sudoku puzzles. Ginny is still hovering over her. She feels her cheek get kissed again and flushes with embarrassment. She's 18, not 8, and James is sitting _right there._

"Any nightmares last night, dear?" Ginny asks, her forehead creased with concern.

Luckily Lily races downstairs at that exact moment, and Rose is absolved from having to answer. How she hates attention. But she knows Lily loves it, and will fight tooth and nail to get it.

Lily's face is painted extravagantly, and Ginnys attention is finally diverted to her real daughter.

"Oh no. You are not going outside wearing _that_."

Lily scowls boldly, her navel exposed.

"Why does James always get to do what he wants but I've got restrictions?" she complains.

"James has never tried wearing a crop top," Ginny answers sagely.

"Quit comparing yourself to me," says James annoyedly, mid-bacon bite. "Compare yourself to Rose."

"Rose dresses like a lesbian though."

"Would explain why she dated Malfoy," James chortles, while Rose pretends not to hear, staring down at her sudoku puzzle. She scribbles down a 9.

"That's enough, you two," Ginny disparages. "Rose can dress _however_ she wants."

"Well maybe I should just stop speaking for eight months if I want to get my way," Lily sneers back. "Since _that_ seems to do the trick around here."

Rose feels her ears burn. She blinks a few times, pushing more tears away, then jots down a 4.

"That's enough," she hears Ginny reprimand her daughter fiercely.

"No, it's not enough," Lily retorts, absolutely enraged now. "I'm tired of all your blatant favoritism, _mother_."

Lily storms back upstairs and they listen as the door slams. Ginny sighs and collects the plates off the table, while Rose does not look up from her puzzle, more than accustomed to the Potter's brand of fighting.

"Bag of sunshine, that one," James snarks, the only one comfortable enough to make jokes.

X

X

X

The sky is bright by the time Rose shoves through Ministry doors, shoulders slumped, oversized hoodie draped over her face.

Her sleep-worn eyes stay locked to the ground as she navigates her way through the sea of Ministry employees. She cuts corner after corner, avoiding nosy stares, flashes of recognition ("Oh look, that goes Ron and Hermione's daughter!"), which are often followed by remarks ("Poor thing" or "Heard she dropped out of school after it happened" or "She looks _terrible_"). Her ID card swings clumsily against her baggy trousers. It reads:

ROSE WEASLEY

JUNIOR DATA ANALYST

DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

Her clock-in time is equally abhorrent: 10:12 AM. A buzzer dings and a cool, male voice announces to the entire Auror department 'Ms. Weasley is late!'. The aurors at nearby cubicles chuckle, and she knows they're not laughing _with_ her. Her face stings with shame. Inwardly cursing whatever sadist-arsehole came up with announcing ones lateness to the entire floor, she shoves her fists deep into the holes of her sweatshirt and shuffles toward her desk. More whispers make way to her ears during this journey ("Look at Potter's niece strolling in whenever she feels like" or "Must be nice to have a powerful uncle who lets you get away with anything" or "Living proof that even _Potter_ isn't above nepotism"). The whispers aren't wrong; in fact, they're exactly right, and that is the worst part. Scrutiny wounds her, and she hates this about herself, hates that she has no grit or confidence or burning desire to do—_anything_ about it. Even without a dark lord to thwart, the adult world is cruel, and a young woman must show strength. Her mum, a good mum but a _tough_ mum, once told her that a young woman cannot wilt like a flower.

Pity that same mum had the nerve to name her _Rose_.

DATA ANALYSIS happens in the back, in two cubicles joined side-by-side. Martha, the other analyst, is stooped over her desk setting out documents. There flows, as always on a Monday, the ritual exchange of inquiries into each other's weekends. Rose's is always "quiet", and after meekly, soundlessly mouthing the word, she is handed a large packet of forms.

"Loads more coming in, so don't get too comfy," says Martha, with her usual brazen edge, as she wheels forms to the desks of aurors. "Need coffee, luv?" she asks, planting a stack onto Auror Sternam's desk. Sternam gives an absent nod, his eyes glued to important-looking criminal reports.

Rose cards through her own thick wad of paperwork, lined with long rows upon rows of numbers, and sighs. She doesn't have NEWTs, but despite a measly 4 OWLs (Not as good as her Mum's perfect 11 or Al's even more insufferable 12, the two people she's always compared herself to), it helps that Arithmancy has been her best subject. She checks numbers for the Auror department. Payroll, resource, transportation costs. It's not glamorous work, not exciting work, but it's detail-oriented work.

Rose has always been good with the details. Noticing the sort of things other people won't.

"Coffee, Rose, coffee! Aye or nay?" Martha calls across the room whilst sparring forms onto the desks of Aurors.

Rose shakes her head so adamantly, wisps of red hair fall loose from her messy bun, falling tousled at her shoulders. Martha strides over. With a grin, she extends fingers to fold the strands behind her ears.

"Little waif," Martha cooes, in a rather maternal way, very publicly, much to Rose's red-faced embarrassment. "I recall, some thirty years ago, when I was as young and cute...I was three stone lighter than I am now, of course."

Rose gives a strained smile. Middle-aged women always want to coddle when they learn the dead parent thing, and Martha is the worst in that select category. As Martha waddles across the room, her heavy set hips swaying, to get coffee, Rose climbs atop her swivel chair. She squeezes onto the cushion, her legs folded beneath her small bum. She realizes she must look like a child, rolling her oversized sleeves to her elbows, as she rubs her nose and picks up a quill.

When Rose first started, she was surprised by how clumsy and self-conscious she was, being an adult setting. She felt inept, unnerved. Months before she had lived a very closed life, and even interacting with Martha, the vivacious fifty-year old, had been a struggle. But she quickly learned that data analysis isn't difficult. A lot of the time it's just number checking, making sure information flows logically. Her job involves scanning papers and accounting for missing information. She tends to be faster at it than Martha. But that is because Martha, the stocky, dyed-blonde, three-times divorcee with an enviably tough spirit, is just killing time until retirement.

Martha used to be an auror, a dignified one, a bloody _outstanding_ one. She had an accident on the field a few years and has since been demoted to administrative work. _I tell you, Rosie. I gave the best years of my life to these Neanderthals and they've made me nothing more than a glorified receptionist._ Since then, she's found other ways to amuse herself.

"Trainees dropping in all this week," Martha reports the latest office gossip, plopping down near Rose's desk with a hot mug of coffee, "so if you see any confused puppies strutting around thinking they're god's gift to earth, just send them my way," Martha crackles. "I'll set them straight."

In line with her midlife crisis, and after her third divorce, Martha has discovered a love for practical jokes. It doesn't help that newbies almost always mistake her for a receptionist, something she abhors when she has more field experience than half the department. Martha enjoys scheming a lot more than she does working. Luckily, she chatters enough and without much awareness, so that Rose's lack of input doesn't ever really become a problem. And when aurors—of the young, arrogant, male variety— stop by their desks for non-work-related reasons, Martha traps them in long conversations about Tupperware or her aching bunions, and that is how people quickly develop the good sense to stay far, far away from the pair of data analysts.

Rose rolls her eyes, flipping a page.

"I should get a pay raise for humbling this lot, don't you think?" Martha says, heatedly, watching an entertaining scene unfold in front of them. A group of rowdy, guffawing, new aurors shove past one another, sloshing coffee across the floors as they crowd into the meeting room.

"You know that curse breaker, Joseph McLaggen?" Martha continues. Rose nods, only half-listening, eyes trailing a financial report. "Now imagine dealing with _two dozen McLaggens_." Rose grimaces, and Martha nods insistently. "I tell you, Potter keeps me around just to straighten these laddies out—And I've already been hearing terrible things about Potter's kid, heard he bolted in last night tracking mud _everywhere_." Martha makes an intimidating show of cracking her knuckles. "Guess it's on me to straighten him out too."

Without looking up from the report, Rose raises her fist. Martha, grinning, bumps the fist with her own.

The thought of Martha terrorizing Al his entire first week on the job for being an arrogant shit must be divine justice. Her cousin is selfish, cocky, drily ambitious. Always pursuing his own ends, pretending to himself that his future is not in essence self-gratification to his ego. Once, they'd been best friends, far too friendly. The prospect of that ended three months ago.

"And Head Potter…He's losing it," Martha grunts out. "He needs to retire. Kinglsey's been telling him that for ages. Though, really, Kingsley should retire too. Do away with all these old men. "

Rose raises an eyebrow.

"Yes, yes, I know I'm just as old as them," Martha says hotly. "Don't be such a little smart arse."

Rose gives a toothy grin.

Martha stands again, wincing a little.

"Savor your knees while you can Rosie. Once you get to my age, moving just isn't fun anymore."

Rose stares tiredly down at her knobby knees, buried in jean fabric. She feels older than she is. She has developed an appreciation for the mundane. Repetition is soothing. Doing a sudoku puzzle in the mornings and curling up with a book in the evenings with minimal human interaction in between is her vision of an ideal day.

She is proficient in her work, good at following orders and procedures. She knows how to spot mistakes and quickly have them amended.

But for the past few weeks, she's noticed a rather large flaw in the financial reports leaving the department. Numbers, zeros, dwindling. Funds disappearing without any clear source. Why is there something missing? How could the Auror department really spend this much last month? Why is so much money vanishing into thin air?

What is her uncle up to?

She doesn't have to worry about the answer but the question needs to be asked. The fact that no one in the department's asking: _that's_ what she's worried about.

X

X

X

After three hours at her desk, she does decide to pursue that cup of coffee. She follows the corridor to an alcove housing the machine, with a glass image of hyperreal roasted beasts spilling from a beaker, lit from the inside, brown and cream. A cappuccino with an extra shot, perhaps two. Better to start drinking it right here, where, she'll be undisturbed by Martha's endless chatter.

"Rose Weasley?"

She turns, and she finds herself facing Scorpius Malfoy, an auror tag on his uniform.

Damn it all.

"I didn't know you worked here."

It's a stupid statement. But then, she remembers, it's coming from the bloke who didn't learn how to spell her last name until Fifth Year. _Where else would I work?_ she wants to snark. _Where do the majority of witches and wizards work? _It must be painfully obvious from her casual attire that she ranks three or four levels beneath him. Her pride stings._ I wouldn't even __have a job_, she thinks bitterly, _if it wasn't for my uncle_, and for having to rely on that fact, she resents herself.

She doesn't return Scorpius' polite smile. She has nothing to say. Even when they were shagging, she had nothing to say, a fact that had infuriated him and had ultimately led to their break up. They never truly had conversations. What would they even talk about? Quidditch? The weather? The fact he was a spoiled git and she was a cold, antisocial bitch? They'd gotten together when she was still grieving. He, the stupidly pretty boy, had used her, a morbidly quiet girl, for sex. Or maybe it was she who had used him? As a means to escape, what better way to banish the memory of her parents than to hook up with the son of their most loathed rival. It was the worst cliche in the book, and was done in an impulse to rebel, an impulse that came too little too late, and meant a lot... _less_ than all the stories had always made it seem.

By the end, she and Scorpius had fizzled out. His eye had wandered to its next target, Wanda Brunstone's knickers, while she'd grown tired of having hers pulled to her ankles quite so often. It was the fault of all those novels: they highlight the pretty faces and the banter. They never mention what happens _after_ you grow up—you outgrow each other. Mutual disinterest made things easy to end it civilly. Now she wants to avoid him, but not because he is unlikeable. Scorpius, outside his bedroom pursuits, is a perfectly fine person, and he is a competent wizard. But he is not her friend. He never has been.

"So," he begins, with a somewhat guilty cough, "How are you?"

She doesn't meet his eye, stares past his ear at McLaggen eating his sandwich, and gives an impassioned shrug.

He gives a chortle. "Still not talking, I see," he remarks, off-handedly. "That'll make working together…not awkward."

She swirls her coffee, blowing lightly on the cup.

"Anyway, aced my auror exams with flying colors," he answers the question she hadn't really bothered to ask—the hint of something Malfoy-ish and gloating in his eyes, but not intentionally mean. It's only a habit of his. "Dad's pretty pissed, wanted me to go into law like him, not _law enforcement_. Thinks I chose the wrong profession."

She raises an eyebrow, if only to indulge to him, half-heartedly asking: _Then why did you choose it?_

"Because I can," he says hotly. "I'm in charge of my own life. I do whatever I want." Scorpius pauses, mouth still open, realizing he's about to go on a rant about himself. And thankfully stops himself.

"Now tell me what you've been up to, Weasley."

There is no respectful answer to that. Her shoulders bump up in a shrug. For the majority of the past eight months, Rose has done lain in bed and stared aimlessly at the ceiling, and that isn't something she'd be proud to share with anyone.

"Nice," he comments. "A woman's best quality is silence, I reckon." He coolly raises his coffee up as if he's just said something impeccably wise. To make matters worse, McLaggen from behind raises his coffee in solidarity with Scorpius, and says 'hear hear'.

Rose just sighs.

Scorpius grins, to let her know he's joking.

"So, it looks like you've lost weight, but I could be into that...If you ever feel like messing around again…" he lets the question trail, his eyes pointedly hovering over her shoulder and on the arses of the female aurors standing behind her.

The urge to roll her eyes is repressed. She gives a barely amused half-smile, and mouths a 'no thank you'. Scorpius merely sips his coffee, nonchalant, and offers a 'suit yourself.' Then smirks, adding a 'but you'll be back'

Before she can bother with another eye-roll, there comes an enthusiastic shout: "ROSE!"

She blinks, horrified at the loudness, and turns around to find her cousin Al standing right there. Scorpius seems to have gained another slab of muscle and added another chisel to his chin, but her cousin looks as willfully slim as the day he left for training. There's something feline about him: eyebrows fine, mouth pouty in a self concious way, lips a shade too dark and full, but dry and chapped today. Although, there is also a strong physical presence to her cousin; he is not feminine or meek. He cuts across the carpet toward her, expressive in bodily movements, emotional like a dancer. Or like a bull heading at a target.

She squirms, feels an ache spread down her abdomen. Her foot shifts backward. He plans to capture her in a hug, but she isn't about to give him this chance. They've done this stupid, nonsensical dance too many times.

Albus is a strange being—he's always been strange, in personality—in appearance—it is akin to looking in a mirror at times. In another dimension, she thinks, she might be him—the talented, prodigious auror—but his eyes are always so much more vivid than her own ever seem to be. He stumbles stepping forward, and the mischief on his face simmers down to the awkwardness of a boy who's finally seeing someone he's thought about too often these past three months. His quiet is telling, more than words will ever be, but even more so is the aversion of his eyes. She's always been a fan of them, namely in how they contrast hers. Rings of pain, of exhaustion, never quite form beneath his eyes. The similar contoured curve of his lower lid frames the green color of his eyes, but he's a different mind, with different feelings, and different dreams.

He stares her down, dark brow tight with determination, arms extended out, demanding that she surrender to his embrace. She stubbornly draws away. A muscle in his jaw clenches. Scowling, he charges in. "Give up!" he commands, in frustration. "I want my hug, damn it!" He catches her around the waist and then it's all over.

Malfoy makes an undignified retching noise, until Albus shoots an enraged look at him. Then Albus puts her down and cups her sunken face, planting a kiss to each cheek. Her face warms under her cousin's fierce attention.

"Didn't hear you this morning in the house, cuz," he says, laughing, hands tracing her shoulders, palms rubbing at her upper arms, like he's trying to warm her, like he can't decide how else to touch her, while he surveys her appearance with _those_ eyes. Sharp, intrusive.

"Though that might've been because James was hogging all the oxygen. Oh wait. Oh—oh _right_."

It occurs to Albus, and he charms a notepad and quill and hands it to her, his green eyes flicking over her enraged features, "Tell me everything," he says, with all the terseness of a newly-minted auror. "Who's pissed you off? Who's the dumb fuck? I'll sodding _murder_ him. Point me in his direction. I've got an _enormous_ arsenal of hexes I can't wait to—"

She scribbles angrily on the notepad and holds it up for him.

_FUCK OFF._

His face falls. "Right, dumb fuck is me," he says, deadpan. "Dunno why I need to ask."

"Funny how everyone in the entire world has the _exact same_ opinion about you, Potter," Scorpius guffaws, listening in.

Al shoots a look. "Oi, chalk-head," he starts. He pauses mid-breath, and nods toward the door. "Strut; Out of my office."

Scorpius doesn't bat an eyelid. "This is the communal break room."

"Well, Rosie pie and I are in the middle of a reunion, and you're _not_ invited," Albus says.

"I can't fucking believe this, Potter," Scorpius riles back, slamming his mug on the nearby counter. Half-grinning, he strides forward. "You're telling me I'm _not_ fucking invited to this reunion?"

Al's eyes light up, like a child's. He rolls his sleeves, swaggers toward Scorpius like he's angling for a brawl. "Yeah," he says, bouncing in his spot, with an exaggerated upnod, "You're _not_ included, Malfoy. Wanna tussle about it?"

Scorpius rubs his chin with a falsely contemplating expression. This is a joke, because then the boys lunge at each other, grabbing limbs, roughousing. A second later, they burst out laughing.

Rose stares in bored irritation.

Albus ruffles Scorpius' chalky head, keeping him trapped in a headlock, and then Scorpius jabs his elbow in Al's ribcage. Al releases him. "Alright, that's enough—_gerroff_,_" _Albus dismisses, as Scorpius makes a grab at him again. Then Al turns to her. "You—you get back here, ginger. Back in my arms. I'm not done cuddling you yet."

He picks her up, hugging her waist to him, and spins her around again. She smacks his head.

"Alright, still mad," he says, wincing a bit, setting her back on her feet. "So that's why you didn't respond to my letters. I had a feeling."

Not proffering a response, she turns her heel and storms out of the coffee room.

"Wait!"

She picks up the pace, ignoring him, but a charm grips her wrist before she can make much distance down the hall. Al's carpe retractum has the absolute _worst_ grip.

She sighs. There's no winning when Al brings magic into the equation.

She spins, takes the notepad out, writes:

_I have to get back to work._

"So do Malfoy and I," Al says, tugging her back into the room, mischief shining in his eyes. "But my dad runs the place. So _clearly_ we're not going to do that—Isn't nepotism fun?"

"We just got back to England," Scorpius snorts. "If I have to sit through orientation all day, I'm shooting Potter in the face."

"You mean you're shooting yourself in the face," Al corrects.

"Nah," Scorpius says with a grin. "Definitely you, mate. Mine is too pretty."

"_Rose__; _tell us who's prettier, me or this hideous vampire-looking git—"

Annoyed and indignant, Rose scribbles again. She holds up her notepad in threat:

_If you skimp work_ _I'll__ report you both to the Head Auror. _

Albus gapes. He yanks her close, gripping her waist tightly to his. "Still telling on me to my _dad?_ Are we five?" he laughs, as she tussles against his hold. "Look into my eyes, Rosie—You are _not_ a snitch."

"What if she is though," Scorpius pipes. "She could get us in trouble."

Al's eyes gleam.

"Don't worry; we won't give her the chance."

Rose gives a small squeak as her cousin lifts her and tosses her over his shoulder.

X

X

X

Minutes later she stands outside in the landing docks. Albus and Scorpius are smoking with a group of other aurors. There's Wolfgang Zabini, Lysander Scamander, and Matthew Wood. Put together, the five of them are very loud, very arrogant, and very _annoying_.

"So you don't talk at all," Matthew remarks, a curly haired fellow, offering her a cigarette. "Are you protesting something?"

She shakes her head.

"I assumed it was a form of radical feminist expression," Lysander says, his tone earnest, stroking the shell of the beetlebug resting on his arm. The bug purrs and flies into Rose's lap, where Albus quickly waves his hand, swatting the bug away.

Eyes closed, a cigarette glued languidly to his lower lip, the sunlight warming the side of his face through the windows, Albus has a knack of looking perpetually posed for a photograph. He sits compressed to her left side, his arm draped around her waist. She has yet to tell him off for doing this yet.

"I imagine sleeping with Malfoy would turn anyone into a radical feminist," Wolfgang sneers, his hair styled as poshly as his name would imply. "Protest away, Rose. Every woman should protest Malfoy."

"Oi!" Scorpius yells, chucking his lighter at Zabini's head, and everyone laughs.

"Didn't Malfoy sleep with half of our unit," Matthew chortles. "That means half of our prospective shags have been completely turned off men."

"Would explain why you still can't get laid, Wood," Malfoy shoots back.

More boorish laughter. Rose's mouth doesn't flicker with amusement.

"Rose doesn't smoke," Al murmurs to Lysander, pushing away the second proferred cigarette, his arm now slipping around her shoulders.

The boys look among each other, as if to ask. _Then w__hy__ is she here?_

A pang of embarassment hits her. She stares down at her lap, feeling horribly awkward and small.

She stands, grabs her purse, ready to flee the premises.

Al glares at the boys, as if to scold them.

No, stay," he insists, "We want you here. And I.." He stands and pulls her aside, out of others' earshot. "I want you to get used to being around people again, Rose," he whispers. "Look—you can't just lock yourself in your room when you go home like you used to."

_Yes, I can. _

"Don't you like my new mates?"

She rattles her head furiously, her wispy hair flying out her bun.

Al frowns. "Why not?" he says, leaning in, close to her face, folding a stray strand behind her ear.

_They're all piggish and rude._

Al laughs. "And what's wrong with piggish and rude?" he says. "Sure, they're a bit crass—hey, there's girls in my unit too, uh, nice ones, I promise, I'll introduce you to some later."

He wasn't getting it.

They were all Aurors. Successful people. Pretty and happy and confident people. She wasn't like them at all.

_I'm a loser._

"Rose," he says, and leans in to rest his forehead against her crown. He sighs. "You can't keep thinking this way. You're not a loser—I _promise_ you're not."

"Your dad caught me and a couple of the lads out here this morning, Potter," Scorpius calls, interrupting their chat.

"Did he?" Al calls back. "Was he pissed?"

"He was angry that we moved the cameras."

With a sigh, Rose glances up at the camera, stands, looks. Something strikes her about the scene...something familiar.

"What is it?" Al says, noting her tenseness. He glances back at the his boys, then at her.

She gives no response, just stares back up at the camera.

X

X

X

She strides past the grand mahagony door emblazoned with the golden words HEAD AUROR HARRY J. POTTER. She doesn't think to knock.

The absence communicates a harder message. Heavy pauses and frozen footsteps outside doors and almost-knocks say more than the phrase we_ are falling apart _ever will.

Instead, she lingers outside her uncle's office. She can't hear much but is perceptive enough to note that he hasn't cast a Mufflaito charm, which is a suspicious act in and onto itself.

"Keep trying, Mudungus. There must be something there."

Mudungus Fletcher? The former Order mole? Why on earth is Harry talking to Mudungus Fletcher for?

Curiosity gets to be too much.

She knocks on her Uncle's door. The line on the other end falls eerily quiet.

Seconds later, the door opens.

"You," he says, observantly.

She smiles. She makes a gesture, asking to come inside.

"Is it important?" Harry says, sounding impatient. "I'm in the middle of something."

Her polite smile wobbles.

She quickly scribbles down a note.

_I want to talk about department funds. What they're being used for._

Harry glances down the hall.

"Get inside, quickly," he sighs.

She enters, noticing how on his desk and walls are many pictures with Ginny and his own kids. All the photos with her mum and dad and Hugo, she notes, have been removed.

"Go on, then." Harry nods, sinking into his chair.

She pulls out the forms and shows him her circles, highlights, all depleting numbers.

"Rose, I implore you to leave this alone."

She gestures to herself, adamant. She takes a pen and writes down:

_A lot of money has recently gone missing._

_Hundreds of galleons. _

"We've recently taken in new trainees. The costs cover their wages," Harry says with a tired sigh. "The department is growing faster than ever before, Rose. You haven't been around long enough but I promise this _always_ happens when new people come aboard."

She stares back, mouth tight, unconvinced.

_Three suspicious accounts. Why are they classified? It's not common practice to keep information classified from your analysts._

"You're not an accountant, Rose. Your job is to make sure all the zeros on the forms line up. You work with what I give you, not demand more," Harry says heatedly—snaps, more like. "You're not an auror. I didn't hire you to run investigations, least of all on _me_."

She blinks at his harsh tone and Harry looks guilty, if ever so slightly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—" He breaks off, rubbing the space between his sullen eyes with his fingers. "Look, can't you just— leave this alone?"

She feels a sting of hurt. Feels disparaged. Her uncle's treating her like a child and this isn't the first time he's done this either. This is how _everyone_ treats her. If it was Albus who'd come to him with a similar concern, Rose knows this would be an _entirely_ different conversation.

But she doesn't have to be an auror to spot a problem when she sees one—She understands numbers, understands when there's a flaw of rather _deliberate_ design.

_I think someone may be stealing money._

Harry gives an incredulous laugh.

"No one's stealing, I'm in charge of all funds," he replies.

_Does anyone else have permission to move them?_

Nothing happens in this department without my approval, do you understand that?" he replies, with a look that clearly says _leave this matter alone_. "How's your day going? Martha treating you okay? You can head home early, if you want. You have my full permission."

She frowns. Now he's mocking her. Why would she head home early? Why does she deserve special treatment over all his other employees? Is her work that useless? Is _she_ a glorified receptionist?

Is she _incapable_ of intelligent thought?

X

X

X

Her mum told her that there was more to life than being good at magic, more to life than just being able to blast bright light out the tip of your wand. There were other skills the world needed, creative skills, interpersonal skills, analytic skills. Her mum said that you were allowed to like what you like and no one was allowed to take that _away_ from you.

X

X

x

On opposite ends, they exist. Night and day. It's another way to avoid each other. Harry is a chronic insomniac, who detests dreaming, the burden of it, while all she wants to do is live in dreams. In her dreams, she floats through clear, carefree water. In dreams, she feels safe.

X

X

X

After work is her second appointment, same woman, equally detested. Harry's paying a fortune for her to entertain this therapist.

"So then, let's talk about today."

Rose stares down determinedly at her lap, at her wristwatch, at the slow passage of time. _Only one hour,_ she thinks. _One more hour to get through. _If she knows anything, it's how to stone wall someone who aims to get inside her head.

She picks up her notepad and writes.

_Al's back in England._

"Your cousin? Is that awkward?"

_He has a lot of new friends. _

"And you don't like that?"

Rose sighs.

_They're all cooler and louder and more fun than me. _

Dr. Clarice frowns.

"You feel like he's leaving you behind."

_I dont care what Al does anymore._

_I don't care if he travels to foreign countries and shags a lot of girls._

_I don't need him._

_I'll just make myself better. I'll just focus on self-improvement...I don't need friends._

_I'm better on my own._

Dr. Clarice makes a noise in the back of her throat to show that she's unconvinced, or that Rose has given the wrong sort of answer. Rose doesn't care. "Anyway," the psychiatrist says, "What about Harry?"

_He thinks I'm stupid and worthless._

"I'm sure that's not true."

_And he__'s keeping secrets from me._

"What kind of secrets?"

Rose grips the sides of her sofa with her fingers, digging her nails into the plush cushion, thinking about the late nights, misplaced funds...strange calls.

She breathes. Sighs. Grabs the notepad and writes.

_I think he's still investigating my parent's deaths._

_I think he's secretly being doing it for the past 8 months._


End file.
